OT Adam Silver Warns Teams About Tanking, Says NBA Will Closely Monitor Their Play

What's weird is that in the NFL where there is no lottery and it is based on record you would think there would be more completely obvious tanking. The 49ers won their last 5 games and fell from 2 to 9 (or 10 depending on a coin flip) and a team like the Jets who everyone thought was tanking ended up winning 5 games and were somewhat competitive. Why is it seemingly different for them?

I guess you can make the argument that a star in basketball is harder to get in the draft if you don't have a top pick but I don't think changing the percentages would make any difference unless it is completely even for all teams in the lottery (frozen envelope!). Personally, I don't have a problem with teams that tank. I think Cuban is right when he says that losing is the best strategy for a team like the Mavericks right now. I don't think it changes the integrity of the game as those teams are usually bad already.

 

Problem with that is a team in 9th would tank hard to get to 8th due to the huge bump in odds.

 

It was about 10 years ago. I remember it being such bullshit how it was so random when they would call it. They called Andre Miller for running in from the 3 point line too soon and it cost us a game when the worst part is the other team committed that same violation on every single one of our free throw attempts and it wasn't called.

 

Being a season ticket-holder, I want to see a good quality game.

If the other team is holding out their star players, I'm not getting my money's worth. I don't want to explain to my son why we didn't see Dirk Nowitzki play even though he isn't injured.

And yes, as a Blazer fan I like to get the W. But to be honest, going to a game and blowing out the other team (because they are tanking) and seeing a bunch of scrubs doesn't motivate me to want to pay to see that product.

 

Ah. It's hard to remember after a certain point.

 

I completely agree with blatant tanking and sitting stars with no injuries for long periods of games. However, with a guy like Dirk who is over the hill anyway I don't have a problem with them limiting his minutes and playing the younger guys. Now if last year the Blazers sat out Dame and CJ for the last 30 games because they wanted to move up in the lottery then that would be bullshit. As mentioned by others in this thread the Suns still played pretty hard and the Kings could've wilted at several points in that game last night down double digits but still kept it reasonable the whole game. I think the problem lies more in some of these teams that are high in the lottery several years in a row and don't seem to be getting better.

 

Tank hard meaning try to get into the playoffs?

 

It's amazing that the Kings will finish with a losing record and miss the playoffs for the 12th straight year. They had a top 10 pick in each of those drafts except for 2006, when their highest pick was 12.

 

Silver needs to scrap the lottery, and find a way to restrict the creation of super teams, and STFU with his empty threats

 

Prior to losing Cousins they had 8 top 8 draft picks in 8 years and never manged to win more than 33 games.

I know the draft is an inexact science, but in the five years after drafting Cousins, these were their picks:

2011 - Bismack Biyombo at 7th (made even worse by trading him for Jimmer Fredette), could have had Kemba Walker (9th), Klay Thompson (1th) or Kawhi Leonard (15th)
2012 - Thomas Robinson at 5th, could have had Damian Lillard (6th) or Andre Drummond (9th)
2013 - Ben McLemore at 7th, could have had C.J. McCollum (10th), Steven Adams (12th) or Giannis Antetokounmpo (15th)
2014 - Nik Stauskas at 8th, could have had Dario Saric (12th) Zach LaVine (13th), T.J. Warren (14th) or Jusuf Nurkic (16th)
2015 - Willey Cauley-Stein at 6th, could have had Miles Turner (11th) or Devin Booker (13th)

And that's not even including the guys taken much later (Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, etc.). I figured everyone missed on those guys. So, not fair single out SAC for passing on them. Not only did SAC draft poorly they drafted so poorly that Cauley-Stein has a chance to be the first of the five that lasts beyond his rookie deal in a SAC uniform. Robinson didn't even last a season. Stauskas exactly one season. Fredette a season and a half. That's some monumentally bad drafting right there.

BNM

 

Yep. I went and looked up their draft history just to see what they had done. It's just a constant reset.

 

No in terms of lottery standing.

 

Yeah, it's even worst than you would think when you lay it out like that. No amount of tanking is going to make up for a stupid front office.

Edit: You didn't even mention them taking Papagiannis and then waiving him a year and a half later either, good lord they are bad.

 

In my system the bottom four playoff teams have a slightly better chance of winning the lotto. All the non playoff teams have the same chance which would be slightly lower than the lower playoff seeds. So the only tanking could be in the 4th seed tanking for 5th seed but the punishment of losing HCA in the playoffs should prevent that.

 

Adam Silver: Don't tank.

Teams: Or what?

Adam Silver: Or else!

 

Love the guy but Nurkic flops all the time.

 

I wish he monitored the salary cap spike like he should have. That would have helped with "The integrity of the competition on the playing court" a bit more.

 

What should he have done differently? The league tried to implement a gradual increase instead of a one year spike and the players association refused to allow that.

 

Any video evidence? I think he overly sells his contact at times, but he DOES get hit. There's a fine line he walks between getting fouled and flopping. If the refs won't call it otherwise, then fuck it. Damian gets mauled time after time and won't get the calls, so if he had to sell it more for them to blow the whistle, then fine.